For the second time in two years, some Oklahoma lawmakers are attempting to address a critical shortage of child care options for parents.
“We’ve lost 2,800 spots in the Oklahoma child care industry since last April, and it’s a very, very complicated industry,” said Rep. Suzanne Schreiber (D-Tulsa).
Largely exacerbated by the pandemic, national reports show the country is experiencing a shortage of available child care spots, causing prices to soar and parents to miss work to stay home and care for their kids. The problem is particularly acute in Oklahoma, which ranks 46th in overall child wellbeing, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
Multiple states have passed legislation in an effort to address the issue, but Oklahoma so far has failed to do the same. Schreiber and other lawmakers attempted to pass a bill last year to provide tax credits to employers who seek to increase child care access for their employees, but the House and Senate failed to reach an agreement on the measure at the end of session amid contentious budget negotiations. This year, the effort has been renewed.
Schreiber is one of the authors of HB 1848, which advanced out of the House Appropriations and Budget Committee on Feb. 26 and passed off the House floor March 12. If it becomes law, the bill would provide a tax credit to employers equal to 30 percent of the cost of providing more child care access for employees. Employers could provide that benefit by either opening a daycare themselves, providing money to employees so they can pay for child care or by contracting with a child care center to reserve spots for employees’ children. The tax credits would be non-refundable — meaning they could not reduce a business’ tax liability below $0 — but they could carryover up to five years. The credits would be capped at $30,000 per employer, and the overall annual cost of the program would be capped at $5 million.
“Given the crisis that we have in the child care industry and for our workforce and for our parents, I think it has a great opportunity to go forward,” Schreiber said. “It’s a way that we can bring in the private sector to help solve this problem by offering this tax credit that then allows for less cost to employees and also stabilizes the child care market by making sure that parents are utilizing it and not staying home or putting their children in an unsafe situation at a neighbor’s or something like that.”
Schreiber’s bill has the support of the State Chamber of Oklahoma, which has called child care a “workforce infrastructure” issue.
“We have been preaching for the last three years that child care is workforce infrastructure. Getting people back into the workforce — providing a safe, affordable option for families — is a priority,” Emily Crouch, the State Chamber’s senior vice president for governmental affairs, said during a Feb. 6 press conference.
Schreiber’s bill advanced from the House by a 63-19 vote with no debate against it. Owing to the up to $5 million annual price tag on the proposal, however, leaders of the House Appropriations and Budget Committee struck HB 1848’s title, a procedural amendment that guarantees bills with fiscal impacts or other complicating factors will be heard again in their chamber of origin one way or another.
During discussion of the bill on the House floor, Schrieber faced questions from Rep. Jim Olsen (R-Roland) who asked if the state should be incentivizing both parents to work.
“We’re addressing an economic issue. We need a workforce — there’s many families that have a single parent that may need to go to work that don’t have a choice, and I don’t want to put kids in an unsafe situation where they’re not going to a quality, licensed daycare,” Schrieber said in response.
Just as it did last year, the State Chamber listed Schreiber’s bill as one of its priorities for the 2025 legislative session. Schreiber said she is hopeful this year will see the tax credit passed into law.
“I think there’s the will more than any other year this year, given just the stats, and sort of maybe we’re up in the queue to make some investments — provided (…) we can survive the larger budget environment,” Schreiber said. “But I think colleagues from across the state are hearing about this from their local providers and parents and employers.”
Sen. Kristen Thompson (R-Edmond) is the Senate author of HB 1848. She also noted that the bill’s fate will depend on the state’s larger budget conversations, which have been dominated thus far by a reduced appropriation authority compared to last year and Gov. Kevin Stitt’s ongoing push for cuts to the personal income tax rate and the corporate income tax rate.
“The challenge is that there are a lot of really good initiatives that are wanting to be funded, and at the end of the day, it’s just like with your personal budget — sometimes there’s just not enough money,” Thompson said.
Thompson also acknowledged the scope of child care access issues.
“Workforce is a nationwide issue,” Thompson said. “This is a great tool that Oklahoma can use. I can’t tell the future, but I know that — especially as a working mom — it’s something that I’m committed to fulfilling.”
The issue has the attention of House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, himself a working parent who acknowledged the challenge of finding quality child care when he accepted his designation as speaker last year.
“We have to talk about child care. It’s certainly part of the equation when you’re talking about having a state that’s pro-family. I’ve got a 2 year old in daycare right now, and so that’s something that I’m personally experiencing,” Hilbert (R-Bristow) said during a Feb. 27 press conference. “But at the same time, you also have families that are working and trying to make ends meet, and then also we want to make sure that we are providing policy that makes sure that those child care providers can stay in business. So it’s certainly important and something that we’re going to continue to work on in the Legislature.”
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Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton also recently discussed the problem, saying it had been an issue for his family.
“As a father of four, (…) that was an issue with us,” said Paxton (R-Tuttle). “[My wife] was a school teacher, and we were able to manage that back and forth with two, but when we had number three and four, she stayed home for 10 years to help raise the kids because it just became too much for us — and not everybody has that option.”
Paxton called attempts to address the issue a “high priority,” but he acknowledged the challenges of creating new tax credits in a year where the state’s revenues are down.
“Obviously, there’s a lot to it,” Paxton said. “This is a year where the money for tax credits is not quite as readily available as it was last year, but it’s still something that’s very important. It all goes back to the workforce.”
‘Heavily regulated industry’
Although HB 1848 may appear to have the most momentum behind it, other bills seeking to address the child care shortage were filed this session as well. Schreiber explained that the complicated nature of the industry means improving child care access must involve multiple strategies.
“Child care is a very heavily regulated industry, because it’s meeting kids at their most vulnerable moments in life,” Schreiber said. “They’re very young, so they need high quality (care) because they’re building their brains, and they also have a lot of safety measures at that age. That is extremely costly for these providers to deliver.”
Schreiber has another bill — HB 1847 — seeking to lower the cost of providing child care by cutting some regulations. It faces a March 27 deadline to advance from the full House.
Schreiber said many child care facilities are subject to multiple fire safety codes, meaning they must have sprinkler systems installed along with smoke alarms, fire extinguishers and egress points.
“The sprinkler system is an overreach, in my opinion, and so that is one small thing that we can do on regulation,” Schreiber said, noting that sprinkler systems are often the most cost-prohibitive line item for businesses seeking to open a child care center.
Another of Schreiber’s bills, HB 1849, would exempt child care workers’ income from being considered on applications for the Child Care Subsidy Program, effectively providing them with their own free child care. HB 1849’s title has been stricken, and it faces the same March 27 House deadline.
“It’s a recruitment and retention incentive tool like we have in software, in nursing, in manufacturing and aerospace, in multiple other sectors,” Schreiber said. “We need to offer it in this sector, which really needs a stabilization and a boost.”
As lawmakers weigh priorities and the larger budget conversation, another representative filed a bill to examine the larger ecosystem affecting child care access. However, it did not pass out of committee prior to the year’s first deadline. Rep. Trish Ranson (D-Stillwater) filed HB 1979, which would have created a task force to examine the state’s current approach to child care and make recommendations for changes.
Schreiber said that bill — which could be considered next year — stands as an acknowledgment of the necessity of system-level changes to improve options for kids and families in the state.
“There are bigger conversations to be had about how we manage this,” Schreiber said.
